The City of Congonhas, Brazil, Deploying Oxitec’s Friendly™ Aedes aegypti Solution, Reports Curtailed Dengue Spike and Suppression of Dengue-Spreading Mosquitoes
PRESS RELEASE
The City of Congonhas, Brazil, Deploying Oxitec’s Friendly™ Aedes aegypti Solution, Reports Curtailed Dengue Spike and Suppression of Dengue-Spreading Mosquitoes
The city of Congonhas deployed Friendly™ Aedes aegypti - locally known as Aedes do Bem™ - and subsequently reported a curtailed spike in dengue cases compared to neighboring cities, as well as reduction in the number of dengue-spreading mosquitoes.
In 2024, while surrounding cities experienced up to a 7,000% increase in dengue cases compared to previous years, Congonhas reported a comparatively lower increase of 299%.
The Friendly™ Aedes aegypti product was launched nationwide in Brazil in 2022, and is now serving governments, businesses and households across the country.
Congonhas, Brazil, 28 August 2024 – Amid one of the worst dengue outbreaks in Brazil's history, the city of Congonhas, once among the most severely affected in Minas Gerais, has seen a significantly reduced spike in dengue cases and recorded a decline in the population of dengue-carrying mosquitoes following the deployment of Oxitec’s Friendly™ technology. While neighboring cities experienced dengue case surges of up to 7,000% compared to previous years, Congonhas reported a comparatively lower increase of 299% in 2024. Additionally, the municipality's data indicate that Friendly™ mosquitoes successfully suppressed the Aedes aegypti mosquito population[1], as well as the number of mosquito breeding sites.
City authorities credit this success to a new integrated vector control strategy, which includes deploying Oxitec’s Friendly™ Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to control the populations of dengue-spreading mosquitoes. Congonhas is the first municipality in Brazil to use Friendly™ Aedes aegypti to protect all of its residents.
Oxitec’s just-add-water solution produces non-biting Friendly™ male mosquitoes over time, which mate with invasive, biting Aedes aegypti females. Their female offspring cannot survive, which means fewer biting female mosquitoes in the following generations. This Friendly™ technology controls the pest mosquito without harming beneficial species like bees and butterflies.
With dengue incidence much lower in Congonhas than in neighboring cities, the Municipal Health Secretary of Congonhas, Allan Diego Falci, commented: “The average increase in the number of dengue cases registered among the municipalities in the region exceeded 2,000%. Although Congonhas registered an increase of 299% in cases, it was 90% lower than the average for neighbouring cities. This reflects the intense work carried out by our municipality’s vector control team, including the adoption of innovative tools such as Friendly™ technology.”
Beginning in July 2023, the municipality installed more than 4,500 Friendly™ Aedes aegypti devices across more than 1,500 locations in urban Congonhas. Each month, these devices were replenished with refills containing Friendly™ Aedes aegypti eggs. When activated with water, the eggs hatch and develop inside the boxes. After 10-14 days, adult non-biting males emerge and seek out female Aedes aegypti to mate with. The female offspring of these Friendly™ males do not survive, effectively reducing the disease-spreading mosquito population.
In May 2024, 10 months after the introduction of Friendly™ Aedes aegypti, surveillance by the Ministry of Health found no mosquito breeding sites in the 1,004 properties inspected. This indicates that the strategy implemented by the city of Congonhas led to undetectable levels of the dengue-spreading mosquito — a remarkable and unprecedented outcome, particularly in a state like Minas Gerais, where the surge in mosquito density and the associated dengue crisis had been severe.
“These new results from the city’s Ministry of Health represent a major milestone in the fight against disease-spreading Aedes aegypti. The reduction to zero mosquito breeding sites amidst a large national dengue epidemic demonstrates the potential of Friendly™ technology in controlling mosquito populations effectively, safely, and sustainably. And this is just the start. We’re working with a range of cities across Brazil as they seek effective vector control solutions that are sustainable and scalable. We’re scaling as fast as possible to make this technology widely available to communities,” said Natália Ferreira, Managing Director of Oxitec do Brasil.
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About Oxitec
Oxitec is the world’s leader in sustainable biologically engineered solutions to the world’s largest pest threats for human health, food security, and environmental sustainability. The first to market and first to achieve successful commercialization of targeted, self-limiting species-specific pest solutions, Oxitec has developed the Friendly™ technology platform which is advancing diversified solutions to critical pest challenges around the world. Driven by a team comprised of 15 nationalities and with strong partners, collaborators and distributors in multiple countries and markets, Oxitec is leading the global transition to sustainable pest management.
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[1] From January to May 2024, the municipality recorded a significant reduction in the number of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes citywide, as measured by the vector infestation indicator from the Rapid Index Survey for Aedes aegypti (LIRAa). According to this index, mosquito levels are considered satisfactory between 0 and 0.9, medium infestation between 1.0 and 3.9, and high risk above 4.0. In January 2024, Congonhas reported an average LIRAa index of 1.8 to the Ministry of Health, with one out of four strata at a satisfactory level and three at intermediate risk. This marked significant progress compared to the previous year, when the average index was 2.8, with three strata at medium risk and one at high risk of an outbreak, above 4.0.